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Cuba's Waning System of Block-Watchers
Keeping Tabs on Dissidents
Over DeLeon, with his wife, Luisa Mar¿a, has been a block committee president in Havana for almost 40 years, using a strict approach.
(By Manuel Roig-franzia -- The Washington Post)
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Fifteen minutes outside central Havana, in the Vibora neighborhood, Rafael Garc¿a lives in a home with a bucket for a shower.
When he became CDR president 12 years ago, his monthly meetings were jammed with as many as 75 people. Now he sometimes convenes meetings before an empty room. He has to walk his block, pounding on doors, to get anyone to attend.
"They're trying to rescue this system," said Garc¿a, a 50-year-old mechanic. "But I don't think there's a chance of it flourishing. Every year people hear the same thing -- they'll get more money, their lives will improve -- and nothing changes."
Garc¿a's CDR is just down the street from DeLeon's. DeLeon is strict; Garc¿a, lax. But they agree about the decline of CDRs. Still hopeful for a CDR renaissance, DeLeon is a hawk who misses nothing on his block.
"We know who the dissidents are, where they work, who they meet with -- we know everything that happens on this block," DeLeon said. "Anyone who is not a revolutionary is an enemy of the Revolution."
For years, he watched a dissident whom he identified only as Miguel. When Miguel moved in across the street, DeLeon said he told him he would not tolerate demonstrations or speeches.
"He wasn't a stupid person," DeLeon said. "He listened to me and didn't give me any trouble."
Because Miguel followed the rules, he was allowed to continue living there. Others -- including dissidents who had written anti-Castro materials or run illegal libraries or schools -- have been imprisoned for treason.
DeLeon wrote down who Miguel met with, who picked him up, virtually everything about him, expanding the government's database of party opponents. Eventually, though, there was no more information to collect. Miguel had disappeared into exile in Florida.
While DeLeon relishes the role of neighborhood enforcer as "fundamental to the Revolution," Garc¿a chafes at police pressure to gather tidbits about his neighbors.
"They tell me, 'You have to be doing this,' " he said as he slowly wiped oil from his calloused hands with a red rag. "They say, 'You have to be watching.' "
More often than not, though, Garc¿a has nothing for the police dossiers.
